Book Club Babies: Cherry Cola Book Club #6 by Ashton Lee

A sweet, southern community library becomes a touchstone of support in the Cherry Cola Book Club series from Ashton Lee. Please read on for my review of

Book Club Babies

Cherico, Mississippi is the setting for this lovely series centering around the newly built public library and it’s director Maura Beth. While not having read the earlier books in this series, I was easily able to dive into this story and meet the characters as they shared their story and changes to come with us all. Maura Beth and her English teacher husband are expecting their first child – but they aren’t alone. Her sister in law Elise, visiting Cherico while on sabbatical from her professorship in a nearby university, is also pregnant, as well as a friend from town, Periwinkle, the owner of the Twinkle Café. Instantly, above and beyond a friendship, these women have something in common, and Maura Beth, with her knack of bringing together people to support, uphold and befriend one another has a brainstorm. A support group to share concerns, get information and generally spend their pregnancy together. A wonderful idea that is wholeheartedly supported by all the community – already close knit and supportive from their time spent together in the Cherry Cola Book Clun – that provided care, prayers, concern and community through deaths, health scares, marriages and the monumental and not so moments of life.

Quickly Ashton Lee sucked me into the series – from Jeremy’s ‘pregnancy mirroring’ to Elise’s utter fish out of water utterances, even in supporting Peri and her issues with her mother’s racist views of her husband and her child: the story was full of moments that every group of friends have: ups, downs and just being and existing in the same space. Wonderfully able to address real issues of acceptance, fears, health and even family strife – the story managed to provide a great escape sort of read that kept brining moments of “oh I remember that” or “oh I wish I had” – easily accessible to readers everywhere in every phase of life. Adding to the wonderful characters and ideas brought forward, lovely little bits of literary and wordplay entered the story – hard to miss with a librarian and an English teacher, and when you add a budding romance for Jeremy’s friend Alex, a history teacher, and his affection for the uber-feminist Elise, the sweetness of the story amps up a few more notches. As the conclusion to the series, it was lovely – bringing a sense of closure to this moment, leaving a few questions unanswered, and providing the new generation of members for this book club and community.

In the colorful small town of Cherico, Mississippi, librarian Maura Beth McShay is preparing for an exciting new installment in her own life story--with some help from the Cherry Cola Book Club.

Overseeing the opening of Cherico's new library has been a labor of love for Maura Beth McShay, made extra challenging by the fact that she and Jeremy are expecting their first child. And there's another plot twist on the horizon: Jeremy's sister, Elise, has taken a sabbatical to have a baby and will be staying in Cherico during her pregnancy.

It's an unlikely move for the fiercely independent Elise, one that's causing her some anxiety. Jeremy, who's supposed to be birthing the Great American Novel, is instead testing his wife's patience with his incessant "sympathy pains." Resourceful as always, Maura Beth decides to use her new library as a venue for "Expecting Great Things" meetings--a sequel to her beloved book club. The weekly gatherings allow townsfolk to share hopes, fears, and practical advice about parenting and pregnancy, along with anecdotes both poignant and hilarious. And amongst the revelations and new friendships, Maura Beth, Jeremy, and the rest of the Cherry Cola Book Club prepare to meet their newest members . . .

A copy of this title was provided via Publisher via NetGalley for purpose of honest review. I was not compensated for this review: all conclusions are my own responsibility.

About Ashton Lee

Ashton Lee was born in historic Natchez, Mississippi, into a large, extended Southern family which gave him much fodder for his fiction later in life. His father, who wrote under the pen name of R. Keene Lee right after WWII, was an editor and writer in New York of what is now called pulp fiction. As a result, Ashton inherited a love of reading and writing early on and did all the things aspiring authors are supposed to do, including majoring in English when he attended The University of the South, affectionately known as Sewanee. While there, he studied Creative Writing under Andrew Lytle, then editor of the Sewanee Review, and a member of the Southern Agrarians in the 1920s.
Ashton lives in Oxford, MS, enjoying the amenities of a university town that many writers have called home.